Viewing entries tagged
gospel
In a world convulsing with violence, corruption, disaster, and bitter divisions, what’s the value of spending an hour or so in church? Multiplied millions of Christians worldwide do so, and this week we’ll explore why in this Psalm.
Psalm 122:1-9
We can often find ourselves growing critical and impatient with the people around us. Even our love for Jesus can grow cold. This passage looks at the causes and how God helps us to deal with them.
Luke 7:36-50
As we heed Paul’s warnings about how a church falls off the rails, this message examines what is expected of the church when it meets to worship the Lord. We’ll look at how the Bible shows us the essential priorities of a worship service.
1 Timothy 2:1-7
We grow in the life of faith by trusting and responding to what God has said. When churches talk more about what people say than what God has said, Christians drift into error. This message looks at how to hold onto truth when the world turns away from it.
1 Timothy 1:1-11
The gospel promises eternal life, free and secure in Jesus Christ. Despite that, many people live with fear, guilt, and shame. Not taking hold of the fullness of the good news, they wonder if the world holds the answers, after all. This message looks at the promise of the gospel, particularly for a new generation looking for hope.
Romans 6:23
As Paul introduces himself at the beginning of his letter to Rome, we get to see what he believes defines his life, which draws us to ask the question: What defines your life? What is your mission statement?
Romans 1:1-7
God has made us partners of the gospel, and He uses mutual relationships in order to reach His goal to make us like Christ, and build His church. As we look at Philippians 1, we’ll see how God uses other people in our lives to help us grow and bring joy and thankfulness.
Many Christians are enthusiastic to share the good news about Jesus, until they get a negative reaction. It can be disorienting when people don’t share our excitement with the gospel. This message looks at what it takes to be effective in sharing our faith.
Christians should want to get closer to God, be more holy, and strengthen their spiritual lives. But the only way to do that is to delve deeper into Christ's love and grace. In this sermon, we are reminded why there is no way to improve on Christ's person and work for us.
In His famous hometown sermon, the good news is rejected, and Jesus is almost killed because of the crowd’s preconceptions. This message looks at the good news about Jesus and the obstacles that keep us from receiving it.
Christians often see the gospel as essential to becoming children of God but never connect how the gospel enables us to live the Christian life. We live motivated by guilt, duty, and pride as a result. This message looks at how God has given us the Lord’s Supper to centre our lives in the gospel and fuel the life to which He has called us.
So much of our lives can be traced back to a hunger for acceptance. We devote ourselves to people and causes to show that we’re worthy of acceptance. And we fixate on things that we’ve said or done that might threaten our acceptance. But how does God see us? How can we know if God will accept us? What standard does He use? This message looks at one of Jesus’ famous stories about a Pharisee and a tax collector and considers what it teaches us about our yearning for acceptance and the grace God offers us.
Everyone longs for the good times, but they never seem to last. Why is that? In this sermon, we examine Solomon in his glory days as King of Israel; we see the absolute power he had and the real dangers he faced. From Solomon’s good times, we learn how Christians should think and act when seeking or living in their good times.
The Bible warns us of the extent that we’re susceptible to the people and influences around us. This message looks at how to evaluate those influences and determine which ones we can trust.
The idea of hell is troubling to many people today. It seems primitive and barbaric. Have we rightly understood the Bible’s teachings on this controversial doctrine? Is there a way to reconcile God’s love and goodness with a place of eternal torment? This message confronts these difficult questions through an examination of Jesus’ teachings.
As people take steps in the Christian life, they can be tempted to think that ‘the secret’ is in some new teaching or experience. But growth in the Christian life comes by returning to the starting point and deepening our understanding and response to the foundation. This message looks at that foundation and the most common ways people misunderstand and stray from it.
It’s popular for people to say today that, ‘We all worship the same God.’ But is that a meaningful statement? According to the Bible it’s not whether we worship a being that we call ‘God’ that’s important but rather what we believe about the God that we worship. Today’s message offers three questions to help understand whether the God that you worship is, in fact, the God of the Bible.
God is bringing Muslim immigrants to Canada in record numbers. Most of them have never had an opportunity to hear the good news of Jesus. We, as the church, have the amazing opportunity and calling to share with them the gospel that we so richly enjoy. The question though is “Are you ready…to give an answer for what you believe and why?”
As we continue our study of joy, today we consider the exhausting pursuit of the credentials that people look to for confidence before God and others. Many people try to affirm their worth through morality, religion or success, but the Bible calls us to a different path that involves laying down our credentials to receive something far greater.
Medicine can be a poison if you tamper with the recipe. And unfortunately, many have sought to tamper with Jesus’ recipe for life and blessing. This message looks at the good news that Jesus came to bring and the counterfeits that religion has often posed.
